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Learn.Network.Together.
Leave No Trace e-News November 2008
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BECOME A MEMBER
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JOIN
Leave No Trace Today!
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It's Easy & Quick to RENEW
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Membership Benefits
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Help Conserve U.S. Climbing Environment: Special Access Fund membership rate for Leave No Trace members!
For $36.50 (a dime-a-day) you'll get a one-year Access Fund Membership and Access Fund T-shirt, a $50 value. Go to www.accessfund.org/lnt before December 31st to take advantage of this special offer.
The Access Fund is the national advocacy organization that keeps U.S. climbing areas open and conserves the climbing environment. Founded in 1991, the Access Fund supports and represents climbers nationwide in all forms of climbing; encouraging an ethic of personal responsibility, Leave No Trace practices, and environmental stewardship.
Learn more about the Access Fund! |
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 For the past two days, Center staff joined with the Leave No Trace
Board of Directors for its semi-annual meeting. Though the agenda was
packed full of discussions about strategic plans and key goals, there
was still room left to celebrate this year's successes.
One of
the challenges of being an international program is communicating the magnitude of great work across the country and the globe. Both the
Outreach and Education Departments receive letters, photographs and
emails about Leave No Trace programs on a daily basis. While we get a
chance to enjoy them, it's rare to have the opportunity to look at them all at once.
For the meeting, we put together a Leave
No Trace "Story Wall" of testimonials we've received (handwritten,
typed, in crayon) to share with our hardworking Board of Directors. The visual
display provided a great backdrop for evaluating the year and for
looking forward to 2009.
One of the things our organization
prides itself on is putting the funding we receive right back into
programming - 82 cents of every single dollar. We love your stories, and photos and ideas, and want you to share them so that we are able to continue to
secure support for programs that directly benefit...you(th)!
Sarah Folzenlogen
Education Programs Coordinator
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eNews You Can Use
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Dear Education Department,
I've been hearing a lot about national effort to get kids outdoors. How does Leave No Trace fit into this picture? How can youth get involved with your program?
Sincerely,
Youth Advocate
*****
 Dear Youth Advocate:
Thank you for your interest in the Leave No Trace program! We are very excited about these national efforts to get more kids outdoors and believe the Leave No Trace program complements them nicely. Our PEAK program (Promoting Environmental Awareness in Kids) is a great example. Since many children are exploring the outdoors for the first time-via family vacations or school field trips-it's an opportune time to introduce the idea of outdoor ethics. Key experiences they have at a young age become a part of who they are, and who they become. Environmentally aware kids are more likely to become environmentally aware adults and community members.
The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics works as a community by partnering with many youth-serving organizations that are getting kids outdoors and administering several youth programs ourselves. A great example is our traveling e-tour team, who worked with over 4000 children across the country last summer at different outdoor/sporting venues and events. Our grants and scholarships provide educational materials to camps, schools, outing clubs, boy scout and girl scout groups, nonprofits and guides services, to name a few. These opportunities continue to grow as the Center grows and we are always looking for new ways to contribute to our educational efforts.
Sincerely,
The Education Department
Photo: Tracy Howard, of the Coleman etour program,
teaches kids the "Rule of Thumb" technique to Respect Wildlife.
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My Backyard
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Bigfoot's been Leaving No Trace for years... and so can we!
 Leave No Trace has a new advocate on board - the master of illusiveness, the pro of quiet steps and a new king of the jungle... Bigfoot!
You can help him in his quest to support Leave No Trace today by joining The Bigfoot Challenge. His goal is to raise $5,000 in two weeks all through the online community of Facebook, to allow Leave No Trace to allocate precious resources to programs & education. And, we are on our way with $500 raised so far!
YOU can help today by making a donation to The Bigfoot Challenge on Facebook. Any amount will help us reach our goal, but for donations of $25 or more, you get a limited-edition Bigfoot Leave No Trace t-shirt (incredibly soft and made from organically grown cotton) AND a Leave No Trace membership - a $10 discount!
SUPPORT LEAVING NO TRACE TODAY by joining The Bigfoot Challenge on Facebook!
Questions? Comments? Want to double up your membership renewal with The Bigfoot Challenge? Contact Sara, Development & Membership Manager.
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Road Wisdom |
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Watch Your Step!
Contributed by JD Tanner & Emily Ressler
Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers
 Recently, we attended the Association for
Experiential Education Conference in Vancouver, Washington. While
there, we had the opportunity to participate in a workshop on "trends
and issues in outdoor recreation."
One topic that really resonated
with us was the lack of time kids are able to spend just exploring
outdoor areas. Several camp directors spoke to the fact that most of
the school programs they facilitate at their camp are of short duration
and often focus on the more adventurous aspects of the camp, such as
the zip line and the ropes course. With camp schedules packed so
full, when can these kids have time to just be in nature and enjoy
small wonders like bugs and dirt?
 While we don't have the definitive
answer to that question, we can offer a wonderful activity to encourage
kids (and adults for that matter) to immerse themselves in nature and
really examine the small things that make it so special. The activity
is called "Watch Your Step" and it comes straight out of the Leave No
Trace PEAK Pack.
Focusing on the PEAK Principle, Choose the Right
Path, this activity challenges participants to examine the impact of
one footstep. Lying on the ground, kids closely examine the ground to
find all sorts of amazing natural treasures. Afterward, each child is
confident that they have discovered all that their "footprint" has to
explore, we get together as a group and discuss every single thing that
each child saw. By the end of the activity, the kids have developed a
long list of tiny plants, insects and other oddities, and the kids have
a new respect for world under their feet.
Happy Trails,
JD Tanner and Emily Ressler
Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers Follow JD & Emily as they finish up a successful
2008 Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainer Season!
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Partnership Highlight
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 Blue Galleon / BELA - Olhao
Motto: Sustainable, wild-caught, all-natural
and gourmet... sardines!
Learn More: www.mybela.com
Why we love them: Blue Galleon is an organization with a strong heritage in sourcing quality seafood products. Their top-quality sardines are imported from a thriving traditional fishing community located in Algarve, Portugal. BELA-Olhão products are fished in these non-industrial, unpolluted waters and have no detectable levels of pesticides and extremely low levels of mercury.
 What BELA does for the community: Blue Galleon has engaged with a variety of local communities in such a way that benefits these groups in the best manner possible. These communities include the local fishers in Portugal and native communities of Bristol Bay, Alaska, among others. Although organized Fair Trade guidelines do not currently exist for the fishing industry, Blue Galleon practices mimic those guidelines in its supply chain to effectively deploy these business practices with their partners.
This last spring, Blue Galleon expanded its community-related policies to include land-based conservation groups and initiatives, of which Leave No Trace was the first. Blue Galleon hopes to apply its corporate social responsibility standards to benefit the outdoor industry, and has launched a "We pack 'em in, so you can pack 'em out" campaign - mirrored after the Dispose of Waste Properly principle, to encourage proper usage & disposal of their product for outdoor recreationists.
What BELA does for the environment:
With respect to ocean and fish population health, Blue Galleon employs traditional and sustainable fish catching methods and chooses fish species with healthy populations. Blue Galleon is also a strong supporter of reducing the environmental impact of its products, and has offset the carbon output of its operations in Massachusetts. The company also maintains an in-house recycling program and resource-conscious packaging with easily an easily recyclable high-grade aluminum, considered one of the safest and greenest sources for food items.
If you are interested in learning more about the Leave No Trace partnership program, please visit our Partners Page, or email Sara Close.
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International Highlight
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Translating Ethics
 Yen Hui Hsu from Outward Bound Taiwan recently paid a visit to our Boulder headquarters to talk about Taiwan's emerging Leave No Trace movement. He shared information about the work he and a group of over 20 NGOs, educators, companies and schools were doing to teach Leave No Trace as well as to eventually form a more formal Leave No Trace program in Taiwan. Armed with a slideshow featuring Leave No Trace training in the Taiwanese mountains and impressive statistics about the number of people they are training, Yen Hui laid out a clear case for a minimum impact program in his homeland.
When we began hearing from the international community years ago, we had serious questions about how a program with a heartbeat of ethics - American-style - might translate, culturally. After dozens of international iterations, and ample inquiries into the effectiveness of Leave No Trace curriculum being used in many corners of the world, we hear very little about the need to deviate from the Leave No Trace core program.
What we have learned is that Leave No Trace has varied and flexible application. Islamic jurisprudence is applied to the Seven Principles in Saudi Arabia. In Ireland, the Principle: "Respect Wildlife" is extended to the ethical treatment of farm animals. Pulling the Leave No Trace Principles through broad ethical filters is translating well, to date.
For more information on International programs & partnerships, visit our International Partnership page or contact Susy, Deputy Director.
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| Save 30% |
 The Educator's Toolkit: One each of our most popular education resources! Buy them together and save 30%. Includes the Activity Guide to Teaching Leave No Trace, 101 Ways to Teach Leave No Trace, North America Skills & Ethics booklet, Pocket Guide to Leave No Trace, Frontcountry Guide, and a Library of all 7 Reference Cards.
Get yours today at the Leave No Trace online store!
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Offer Expires: December 1st, 2008.
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ATTENTION MEMBERS & PARTNERS!
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Moved? Moving?
Changing things up?
Please keep your email and mailing addresses current!
Learn.Network.Together.
is another step the Center is making toward a more consistent online communication for our community, in an effort to conserve resources and our planet! Please help us by e-mailing info@LNT.org to update your records.
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